An official walks past the reconstructed Makerere University iconic building, popularly known as the Ivory Tower on October 2, 2024. PHOTO | ABUBAKER LUBOWA
Makerere University academic registrar says the rankings are not a true reflection of their performance.
Makerere University has poked holes into the 2025 World University Rankings by the Times Higher Education, protesting the institution’s decline of its global standing.
The university, now considering issuing a letter of discontent about what they say does not reflect the true measure and progress made, slipped to the 1201-1500 cluster from 801-1000 in 2024. The university, which was ranked in the 400-500 cluster in 2021, has shown a significant downgrade over the last five years.
Prof Buyinza Mukadasi, the academic registrar at the Ivory Tower, says the university has significantly improved in all the key areas considered by the Times Higher Education, except the noticeable decline in the number of international students.
The 2025 global rankings, released on October 9, after considering 2,092 institutions, are based on 18 indicators clustered under teaching, research environment, research quality, the link between the university and industry, and international outlook.
“Before you discuss those rankings, whether they are correct, a true reflection of performance, you need to look at the assessment tool. If those are the five criteria that were used even this time around, then immediately, I will tell you that I will petition,” Prof Buyinza told the Monitor.
He explained that the university now has more staff who hold PhDs, carefully selects where papers by its scholars are published, and has ramped up dissemination of their works with multiple seminars and conferences.
“In terms of volume, since we got the research and innovation fund of the government, $30b, the volume of research has been enormous. We are supporting 1,600 research projects,” he said.
“So when I go to the international outlook, I will tell you, just go around and see the web of international partnerships, the visitation index, and people from outside coming to visit Makerere. For research, either students or senior researchers, you know, we have published extensively,” he added.
With these improvements, including registering 20 patents last year, Prof Buyinza believes the university should have fared better if the considerations were contextualised.
“They have not been fair to Makerere. It's not a true reflection of our performance, and we are writing a letter of discontent,” Prof Buyinza protested.
Globally, Makerere scores the same as the University of Nairobi, Kenyatta University and University of Dar es Salaam, but performed well on the continental rankings, emerging in fifth place in sub-Saharan Africa behind The University of Pretoria, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences Tanzania, University of Johannesburg and University of Witwatersrand. The continental ranking is based on the impact of the university in addressing some of the toughest challenges faced in the region.
Oxford University (UK) emerged as number one globally for the ninth year in a row, followed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology-MIT (US), Harvard University (US), Princeton University (US) and University of Cambridge (UK). South African universities—University of Cape Town, University of Witwatersrand, and Stellenbosch University—were the best three from the continent in the global rankings.
The Western Sydney University, University of Manchester and University of Tasmania (Australia) are the most impactful based on the Sustainable Development Goals description. General analysis of the rankings shows that Chinese universities are edging closer to the top 10, previously a preserve of Europe and the US, while the reputation of the UK and the US is declining.
But as the craze of these rankings increases, questions also abound with criticism peppering the rankings.
When, where, how, and why did university rankings start?
The ranking of universities dates back to the 1960s in the United States, but became more prominent in the 2000s with the first international ranking—Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), in 2003. Times Higher Education, Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings and Webometrics by the Spanish National Research Council started shortly after in 2004 and have become some of the most influential today. Others are CWTS Leiden Rankings, and the US News & World Report Best Global Universities Rankings, among others.
What is measured and how?
Different ranking bodies lay emphasis on different indicators ranging from including quality and quantity of research, number of publications and citations, staff-to-student ratio, and teaching environment.
Others include knowledge transfer, income from industry and the number of patents that cite its research, proportion of international students and international collaborations, impact, and employability of graduates, among others.
“We compile our World University Rankings from information supplied by institutions across the globe, which is scrutinised and considered against the criteria here: The performance indicators are grouped into five areas: Teaching (the learning environment); Research environment (volume, income and reputation); Research quality (citation impact, research strength, research excellence and research influence); International outlook (staff, students and research); and industry (income and patents),” the Times Higher Education website states.
For the 2025 rankings, a university should have produced 100 publications annually from 2019 to 2023, and also considered survey responses from scholars globally. This means a university ranked low by one organisation could potentially score better in another ranking, although top universities mostly top across rankings.
According to Webtronics, which lays emphasis on the quantity of research published on the internet, Makerere is positioned at 1,043 out of 30,000 institutions. University of Dar es Salaam, Kampala International University, Kyambogo University, Makerere University Business School, Uganda Christian University and University of Nairobi ranked 1,955, 2,138, 4,322, 7,117, 8,679, and 14,036 respectively.
What does being top or bottom mean?
There is prestige, scramble by top-performing students and higher tuition levies, unending reforms, and better employment packages as some of the perks of being ranked top. Sector officials say many decisions are significantly influenced by the rankings both globally and on a regional basis.
Ranking top or bottom according to scholars influences decisions by students and parents, particularly international students with top-performing students scrambling for highly ranked institutions. Governments and funding agencies are more favourably disposed to highly ranked universities, and graduates of highly respected institutions are likely to be prioritised by employers, while organisations and institutions use rankings as a benchmark when seeking out collaboration partners.
“They are very important. You can't underrate them, do it at your own peril. They are determining decisions. Students now determine when they want to enrol for their graduate studies, okay? They are based on that. Even international collaborators based on those rankings determine whom they collaborate with. In terms of grants also, you find that the granting agencies also based on those,” Prof Buyinza said.
“Rankings serve as a particularly useful lens for the study of power in higher education, as they are used to confer prestige, in the allocation of resources, as a form of agenda setting, as a means of stratifying national higher education systems, as a means of establishing hierarchical relations between nations, and as a lever to impose demands for accountability,” an introduction to global university rankings by Clarivate states.
“Education is big business. The number of students travelling abroad to study has increased by 50 percent since 2000. Rankings play a central role in where students go to study and, therefore, which universities benefit from the revenue they bring,” it adds.
What happens after ranking is issued?
Prof Buyinza also expressed dissatisfaction with not being allowed to discuss the findings. “These colleagues that are, of course, picking from only Elsevier or picking from Web of Science may not capture all of the publications by our researchers,” he said.
“That's why I began by saying we needed to draft a letter of seeking clarification, expressing our discontent, and where possible we could even, we could look at, we could do, if they allow, let them unpack those rankings and we review the criteria,” he added.
Universities on the continent are now in the process of setting up an African platform that ranks African universities under the African Alliance of Research Universities. This he said will comprehensively capture the continental context and real-life impact.
What is measured and how?
Different indicators: Different ranking bodies lay emphasis on different indicators ranging from including quality and quantity of research, number of publications and citations, staff-to-student ratio, and teaching environment. Others include knowledge transfer, income from industry and the number of patents that cite its research, proportion of international students and international collaborations, impact, and employability of graduates, among others
